


Star Gazer

by luvinpadfoot



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, Drama, F/M, Pre-Hogwarts, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-26
Updated: 2015-03-26
Packaged: 2018-03-19 19:14:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,237
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3621126
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/luvinpadfoot/pseuds/luvinpadfoot
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>My Luna wears a blue dress, almost periwinkle. She has ribbons tied in her hair. They’re triple knotted and bright pink, clear signs that her father tied them. She no longer has anyone else to tie them in neat bows. Losing my mother is natural. She grows old, it is her time. But my Luna needs her mother.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Star Gazer

**Author's Note:**

> “…they are the eyes a mother leaves behind to guard her children” is a quote from J.M. Barrie’s book ‘Peter and Wendy.’

When my mother dies, I don’t cry.

Her mind leaves before her body and by the time she takes her last breath, she’s only a shell. At first she regresses, forgetting her granddaughter and my husband, still thinking I should be at school. She tries to go into work, unable to remember she retired from the hospital years before. Then she forgets me, asks for her husband, my father who dies when I’m a child. Then he vanishes from her memory and she has the mind of a child, trapped in her declining body.

I say my goodbyes long before we scatter her ashes. As we sail her boat far from the shore, the wind rips my hair into my face. Luna runs across the deck, her lilac dress around her ankles, giggling at the fish she sees. She never meets her grandmother, not while she is whole. She sees her only briefly, supervised visits with both I and her father. Only on the good days.

She’s three, too young to understand death. Soon she has no memories of her grandmother left, only the photographs of the smiling older woman we keep around the house. The one she learns about through my stories, until I too become a story.

It’s nighttime on the boat. The stars hang above us in the sky, keeping watch as we empty the ashes into her beloved ocean. I feel my husband’s hand on my back, a fleeting touch before he takes hold of our daughter. He knows to leave me alone so I can say goodbye to my mother. But she leaves us before I become pregnant and there are no more goodbyes left to say.

When I die, my daughter doesn’t cry.

She is never one for tears, preferring to greet misfortune with a solemn face and watchful eyes. Even so, she stands frozen under her father’s arm. He doesn’t speak. He’s the one with the tears. I never see Xeno cry. He’s too distracted to focus on life’s ills, flitting between projects and discovering pongers and dewflipples. When we meet, I am only a third year. He’s in seventh and doesn’t notice me, but I think he’s brilliant.

We meet for the second time at my job interview. I’ve only been out of Hogwarts a matter of weeks and Xeno needs a new writer for the Quibbler. He’s distracted, and forgets what questions I’m supposed to be answering. I find him charming.

He has his hand on Luna’s head, pulling her into his burnt umber robes. He doesn’t sob, but the tears pour steadily down his face. This isn’t my funeral. Xeno doesn’t believe in funerals. We only scattered my mother’s ashes in the sea because it was her in her will, a legally binding contract. Xeno has me cremated, but that’s it. No use holding a funeral for someone who can’t even attend, he always says. Better to say goodbye on my own terms.

It’s nighttime when he and Luna say goodbye to me. He waited to avoid the yakflowers. They only recede after the sun is down and if you come into contact with them at their peak, they can poison your soul. We are very careful to keep Luna away from them as children are particularly vulnerable.

My Luna wears a blue dress, almost periwinkle. She has ribbons tied in her hair. They’re triple knotted and bright pink, clear signs that her father tied them. She no longer has anyone else to tie them in neat bows. Losing my mother is natural. She grows old, it is her time. But my Luna needs her mother. A child shouldn’t have to grow up without her mother. She’s only nine.

“I miss Mum,” she says, her childish voice sounding strangely focused. She inherits her dreaminess from her father and it breaks my heart to see her so grounded in reality. “Thinking about her makes me sad.”

Xeno doesn’t say anything back to her, but his knuckles turn white. His hand rests heavy on her shoulder. Luna accepts his silence. They feel far away from me, distant, as though I’m watching them from across an abyss, but I can see every detail. Xeno’s face sports whiskers, as though he is avoiding his razor. Luna’s hair is tangled and messy, though it still falls halfway down her back.

“Daddy?” She breaks the silence, turning her questioning eyes to him. “Do you think Mum misses us?”

I don’t. The answer rests heavy in my chest, but I can’t miss them. Death steals your emotions leaving an empty hole. I can’t miss them.

“She doesn’t need to miss us,” Xeno says gruffly. He won’t look at Luna. He sees my face in hers. My eyes. My lips. He can’t let go of me while looking at her. “She’s still here. That’s what the stars are- every person who’s ever died keeping watch over their families.”

Luna turns her head to the sky. The stars twinkle above her, tiny distant lights in the sky. “Which one is Mum?” She doesn’t sound fragile anymore as her eyes flicker between the stars.

“That one.” Xeno points with his hand, but I don’t need the direction to find the star. After our wedding, after the sun goes down on the beach, we stand in the ocean. My dress is wet, ruined, my mother would say, but I don’t care. I’ll never wear the cream colored frock again and this moment is more precious to me than any piece of clothing. Xeno is on his knees, searching for a wollypin. I’ve never heard of such a thing, but he’s eager to make the discovery.

I look into the night sky and take his hand, ignoring any protestations on his part. “Look,” I say. He stands, splashing me to the waist with the salty brine. “The star.”

He glances up, annoyed I’ve distracted him from his task, but he doesn’t complain. “Which one?”

I point high above us. Xeno knows the names of all the constellations, he points them out to me on our first date, but I only know their beauty. I cannot give names the way he can. “There. It’s so faint, like it’s barely hanging on. It’s beautiful.”

“Is it?” He asks. I nod, used to his strange manners. “Well, then. It’s yours.”

“Mine?” I stare at him. Even he must realize stars cannot just be given at will.

“There are more than enough stars in the sky for everyone. That one’s yours.” He points out this star to my Luna, guiding her hand until she finds it too. “That’s your mother’s star. That’s where she watches you.”

Luna accepts this idea readily, gazing into the night sky with wide eyes. I accept this idea too, though I don’t watch them from the stars. It’s a pretty notion, something I would come up with, not my husband. But I am no more and Xeno has taken over as both mother and father. Sometimes a child needs something pretty to look up to.

I don’t need to keep watch because Luna has the stars. They are the eyes a mother leaves behind to guard her children. Long after I am gone, the stars will remain to keep my Luna safe. As my daughter and husband retreat inside, I turn my eyes away. This time I have goodbyes to say, but no one left to hear them.


End file.
